How long can we keep this up?

OregonPacman

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I've been collecting games for 10 years this July. We all know that what we collect is already 20 to 30 years old. Parts are still widely available for most games. I've thought about this for a while now but I always wonder how many more years we can keep these things running before we just can't do it anymore. I intend to keep my Pac and Ms. Pac until I die. I'll be 35 this summer. I can't help but wonder if these things will have survived when I am 75. At that point, the electronics will be 90 years old. Older than most people. Just how long can we expect to be able to repair these original parts?
 
I have thought about that too. I always wonder how long parts will be available and will they ever start to totally dry up. I hope I can hang onto my collection as long as possible, but I am sure eventually there will be a time where I walk away. Hopefully it will be because of old age. :D
 
While it is always difficult to predict how any product will fare as a collectible, you can look at some other "entertainment" products have fared. Grammophones, Victrolas and other very early record players are very collectible, but the numbers of them that are still operational (despite having a low number of moving parts) are very low. Mutoscopes, zeotropes and other forerunners to movies are likewise very collectible and again the numbers of fully operational examples are very low.

As video game electonics continue to die and cabinets are lost to land fills, fires, termites, weather, abuse and neglect, you will see a dwindling market for these objects as the group that cherished them grows older and is less able to care for them. There will always be a market for them, but that market will continue to dwindle. Until they are relegated to the status of antique novelties, like the current market for condom machines and trade stimulators (antique candy and gum machines).

It is only through the efforts of groups like this one and shows like the Northwest show in Seattle, the Houston show, CAX and others that these machines will continue to live on.

ken
 
lol if people are selling them now for 1000+ because they are "vintage/retro", think about how much they will be then...

They will be 20,000 Chinese Renminbi. (I think the jury's out on whether or not the dollar will survive the next several decades.)
 
You can't compare the video arcade game market to the condom machine market. Most of us have fond childhood memories of pumping quarters into arcade games. If someone has fond childhood memories of pumping quarters into a condom machine then they probably need to go see a shrink.
 
I think we are already starting to see some things dry up.. monitors are
an obvious example. While the parts to repair the chassis and flybacks are
avaliable for most. noone is making tubes any more and they are starting to
dry up. When I first got here in late summer last year I used to see monitors
in the forsale section all the time.. thats disappeared..

I believe the monitor apocalypse is coming soon.. Sure you'll be able to find a burned
monitor for quite a few more years but a nice burn free ones are becoming hard to find.
Especially when people are reluctant to ship them.

The discrete components are also becoming harder to find. Eventually (~10 years my guess)
you wont be able to get the parts to fix that chassis or PCB, everything is subminature
surface mounted these days.

As long as there is a demand from this community people will find a way to keep the games
going, we just might have to accept that they wont be 100% original 30 years down the road..
FPGA, surface mounted components, perhaps LCD's, etc.

I personally am making it a point to buy spare PCBs, boards, and cap kits
for all my games and pickup burn free monitors as I can afford them.

I predict in the next 1-2 years, people are going to start buying games
just for the monitors. I know its done now, but I think it will become common place.
 
If more people would repair stuff or have stuff repaired instead of just buying a working replacment, these games will go on for a long long time. People need to stop being impatient.
 
Thus a good reason for MAME. Like it or not....if the electronics eventually go out and replacements / repairs are not available or possible there is always MAME. For some games there are new options such as the Williams Multi-Game board by JROK. Hopefully others will come along.
 
Agree completely with Yellowdog here.

Look at the collectibles from the 50s / 60s - see alot of demand for it. Why? Because that set is at the age (40+) where they are wanting to reconnect with something great from their past, causing the demand.

Arcade kids, like myself, from the 80s are reaching 40+, or better put an age where they want to reconnect with something from the past (could be any age, but most likely over 40).
I like to think that in 5 - 10 years there will be more demand based on this natural desire (and if Disney keeps making retro films that helps too!). Most will be entering a phase where the mortgage is paid, kids are grown, they have more time for liesure, so they will pick whats nearest to their hearts, and some will end up here, looking for the same parts we are. Its already happened, but i think it will continue.

50s and 60s you didnt have as much product, didnt have as much to go back to - collectible wise (cars, vending machines, etc). That may justify the expensive auctions i see going on. 80s, you did - mass produced games. So there is more of it out there.

The decrease in parts is offset by an increase in community - as long as the community stays strong, great guys like Thisoldgame and Phoenix (and many others) will produce whats needed. For the rare titles, well, they are rare in the first place, and will be treated as such.

Price wise, i offer no speculation. Sure, demand may lead to inflated prices, artificial or not, but ultimately we are here for the fun of it, i look forward to others joining the hobby down the line.
 
Malice - sadly i agree with you - people will start buying games just for the monitors (it has crossed my mind). Tough to come by. Damn lCDS!
 
When you want to keep a game for a long time, I would look into getting spare parts now.
My tron has an extra power supply. My phoniex has an extra set of boards and a few extra sound chips because they have been known to die from time to time. Extra cap kits, Extra flyback or even and extra monitor if you plan to keep it pass the ten year mark. Basically anything that wears you might want to keep a spare of and anything that is known to go out in your arcade machine.

With some of the Arcades Machine I sold in the past they came with a box of spare parts that you could almost build another machine with. My theroy is that they are not building anymore and parts base will slowly shrink.
 
If more people would repair stuff or have stuff repaired instead of just buying a working replacment, these games will go on for a long long time. People need to stop being impatient.

Agreed. Can't count the number of posts I've seen where people ask where to buy new monitors because the old one didn't work and they tossed it.
 
I wouldn't worry about it. What you see in 40 years may not be original but it will work. My Centipede may end up having an LCD and reproduction board (like a xxx-in-1) but it will still be a Centipede. Fully original working machines will be a lot harder to find then due to a lack of replacement parts. What we hate seeing now may be the only way to go then.
 
Malice - sadly i agree with you - people will start buying games just for the monitors (it has crossed my mind). Tough to come by. Damn lCDS!

The silver lining in that is that who do you think the casualties will be?... It will be all those shitty conversion games that many a classic died for back in the late '80s and early '90s. The Golden Era will have its revenge. :ridinghorse: :D
 
Once we die ("we" being the people that grew up playing these machines in the '70s and '80s), there will be few people to take our place, simply because the nostalgia will die with us, and the nostalgia is the prime motivation for caring about these machines in the first place.

Between now and then, things will get more difficult, especially with regard to CRT monitors. I for one, will never put an LCD (nor any other type of display that is not a standard resolution, spherical tube CRT) in a classic arcade machine. I'd let it sit in the corner with an R.I.P. sign on it before doing that. Fortunately, I don't think the CRT tube supply will dry up in my lifetime, because millions of them were made in the form of color television sets from the '60s through at least the mid '00s. As for chassis, all it takes is a Mark Spaeth or a Jrok type of person to either reverse-engineer or design from scratch a suitable chassis to use with existing tubes (along the lines of an e.g. 8-Liner chassis that is available now), and have them built in China (or wherever the go-to cheap manufacturing place will be in the future).

The basic electrical components (capacitors, resistors, etc.) will always exist in one form or another. A surface mount component can be adapted to through-hole if needed. Eventually, game logic may have to be implemented in other ways (either through software emulation or devices like FPGAs) if the parts dry up too much.
 
You can't compare the video arcade game market to the condom machine market. Most of us have fond childhood memories of pumping quarters into arcade games. If someone has fond childhood memories of pumping quarters into a condom machine then they probably need to go see a shrink.

I don't necessarily have fond memories of pumping quarters into condom machines, but I have
very fond memories of pumping my quarter roll into coin slots after visiting the condom machine ;)
 
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